The Irish Association of Art Historians (IAAH) with The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) hosted a symposium on collecting which took place at IMMA on Friday 3 (evening) and Saturday 4 of October 2003.

On Friday evening, Jan Debbaut, Director, Tate Collection was invited to present the keynote address followed, on Saturday, by a series of talks and panel discussions on aspects of public, private and corporate collecting.

The morning session addressed the national and local authority positions on art collecting. In the afternoon other aspects of collecting in Ireland were explored. These included short discussion papers on corporate collecting, public art, architectural provision for housing collections, education and mediation of art collections and the artist's and critic's responses to this aspect of visual culture. The symposium concluded with a visit to The Art Collection at The Merrion Hotel.

To Have and to Hold was the first symposium hosted by IMMA and formed the basis for the further development of IMMA's symposia series. Speakers are listed in terms of the professional context of 2003 and were invited to respond to the following topics of discussion.

Friday 3 October 2003 North Range IMMA

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION Jan Debbaut, Director, Tate Collection, UK.

Saturday 4 October 2003 North Range IMMA
INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME Ruth Ferguson, Curator, Newman House and Chair of IAAH and Catherine Marshall, Senior Curator and Head of Collections, IMMA.